And All the Phases of the Moon

by Judy Reene Singer

Genres: Family Life; War & Military; Women's Fiction

Synopsis

Delving into the mysteries of the human heart with humor and emotion, master storyteller Judy Reene Singer explores what it means to begin again after a life touched by tragedy . . . Aila Cordeiro absolutely cannot take on an abandoned pit bull. So why is she suddenly filling food bowls for the wounded stray and opening her seaside home to him? Maybe it’s the sadness in the pup’s eyes, a sorrow that mirrors her own. But caring for another is not on Aila’s agenda anymore.  As the sole owner of the general store in a Cape Cod tourist town, she has enough on her hands.  Besides Aila can’t love anyone ever again. Not since her husband—her heart—boarded a boat with her beloved father two years ago, never to return . . . Of course, life is what happens while you’re making other plans. Now instead of solitude and grief, Aila is suddenly at the center of controversy in the small town. And the only person on her side, besides her best friend, is a stranger whose heart might be more battered than her own.  Ex-Navy seal Sam Ahmadi has seen his share of misfortune, which is why Aila never expects him to be the one to show her how to live again in the face of shattering loss. How to hope for the happiness you once dreamed of . . . “Page-turning, beautifully written . . .” — Library Journal on In the Shadow of Alabama, STARRED REVIEW

Release date: May 29, 2018

Publisher: Kensington

Print pages: 320

Sample

I have walked this beach a million times.

It’s just a long, thin spit of land that nestles inside the curl of Provincetown and points off into Cape Cod Bay like a finger, as though warning the bay not to forget us. And not to forget the ones it took.

I grew up here, in this quiet village called Fleetbourne, which neighbors the beach. I know everyone here. They are all like family to me, every one.

I feel the same about the water.

Felt the same.

I spent my life on the bay; it has been part of my family since the beginning of time. We took our sustenance from it. My grandfather fished here; my crazy grandmother danced in its waters long before I was born. My father always swore that our brains were wrapped in seaweed. When I left for college, he made me promise not to forget where I came from. Small towns are easily forgotten.

I come here every night when I am finished with work and stand on the old wooden pier to stare across the bay. I used to come here every night when I was a child, too. I stood right here, on these same old boards, and watched over the bay. I knew the water so well. Even when it changed—one minute dark silver, mirroring the looming clouds, the next a thoughtful blue that pulled the sky down into its depths. I carried its every iteration in my heart: the white foam that lightly rides the swelling surf onto the pale gold sand, the waves thrashing under a driving rain, the bay sitting serenely under a full moon when the tide is high and so proud that it swallowed the beach in one gulp. I knew all of it. Still do.

Every night I pick my way over the broken shells to get to the pier. They are everywhere. Once they held tiny creatures that gathered together in life and ate and drowsed peacefully in the ocean beds. Now only their shells remain. This is a beach of broken shells.

I used to walk alone. I am especially suited for walking alone. I was very shy when I was a child, and awkward, and was happiest when I was left to myself, to comb the beach for shells and sea glass and the skeletons of sea horses and star fish and try to imagine where they came from. There is as much life below the sea as above and I wanted to know about it all. It was a great and solitary preoccupation. But now, every evening, no matter the weather, I am accompanied by a pit bull. He has made a career of following me.

My name is Aila Cordeiro and I own and run the Galley. It’s a little general store that I inherited from my father two years ago, and it sits right in the middle of town, just off the main street. We handle the mail and sell a little bit of everything, including the traditional sweet golden Portuguese muffins, which were brought to Cape Cod by the original Portuguese settlers and are very popular. Everybody eats them. In the morning, I serve almost the whole town as they come, sometimes one by one, sometimes in a group, following one another like lemmings, into the store for milk and fresh muffins, eggs, and, for those who keep a post office box here, their mail. The first breakfast I ever remember my grandmother feeding me was a toasted Portuguese muffin dripping with butter and beach-plum jam, accompanied by coffee served in my favorite blue enamel mug and so diluted by milk, it was the palest beige. My breakfast is still a toasted muffin and the lightest coffee that can still be called coffee, out of the very same mug.

I work every day. I haven’t missed a day since my father died. Not even Christmas. I keep the Galley open for Christmas.

Here’s how I got a pit bull. One morning, about a month ago, I arrived to open the store and found him sitting in front of the door. He had practically no fur; his skin was covered with lesions. And his broad chest, thick neck and legs, and square chiseled head reminded me of a wrestler, except he was skeletal thin. His eyes had intelligence but spoke of pain and he scooted away if you came too close.

“Who is this?” Shay had asked. Shay Williams is my dearest friend and very beautiful. Growing up, we used to pretend we were twin sisters, even though I am as pale as an oyster shell, with red hair and gray eyes, and she had glowing mocha skin and thick black curls loose as a garden of wildflowers. She cared about everyone, was the first to offer help. I always thought she had the perfect heart. Growing up, I was prone to bouts of shyness; she always had a wide, friendly grin that drew people to her as though she were magnetized and guaranteed her a parade of never-ending dates during our teen years. I counseled her through a variety of broken hearts, and she always answered my panic calls in the middle of the night when my mother grew very ill. I can never repay her for that. We split up for college but promised that we would always be part of each other’s lives, returning to Cape Cod to spend every summer together.

She even introduced me to Dan, my husband.

Excuse me.

Late husband.

Dan and Shay and Terrell—Shay’s boyfriend, now husband— played music together in a little group they called the Bayton-ics. Corny. Dan played the guitar; Shay, the piano; and Terrell, the fiddle. They all sang. Folk tunes, spirituals, easy pop. Sometimes, at Shay’s insistence, I sang with them, holding harmonies against her sweet, clear voice.

“Whose dog is that?” Shay asked when she saw the pit bull. She was wearing cutoffs and a tee, practically the village uniform, and was carrying her usual bouquet of cut flowers from her garden. She had squatted down to pet the dog, but he quickly dodged away, only to sit again, out of reach. “Where did he come from?”

“I don’t know,” I answered, pulling the store keys from my pocket and opening the door, quickly shutting it behind us after Shay and I ducked inside. My habit is to feed anyone or anything that needs a meal and I immediately grabbed a bag of dog food from one of the shelves. The dog crept up to the front door and watched through the glass as I cut the bag open and poured some food into a mixing bowl. I couldn’t take the chance of letting him in. When you own a store, you can’t take chances on stray dogs. Especially his breed.

Shay laughed. “You just made the biggest mistake of your life,” she said, watching me fill the bowl to the top. “But a good mistake!”

“He’s so thin,” I explained, bringing food and water outside. He darted backward and sat down, looking at the food and then at me, but not quite meeting my eyes, as though it embarrassed him to be caught begging.

“Go get it,” I said, then returned into the store. He walked to the food, his nose extended, sniffed, then gulped it all down, drank some water, and sat by the door, staring in at us. I was struck by his dignity. “I hope somebody is looking for him,” I murmured more to myself than Shay.

There were things to be done. Shay and Terrell are music teachers and come back to the Cape every summer from New Jersey. Her mother is a dentist and her dad a math professor, which meant neither had a summer job opportunity for Shay, so she and I helped my father by working together at the Galley through the busy tourist season. Even after we both got married and had started good careers, we would return every summer. Shay and Terrell, me and Dan. It was a reunion in the best way, reliving old times and laughing through new ones, all summer, every summer, until she returned to what she called her winter life. I had a winter life once, too, returning to Boston with Dan at the end of the season. I was head of the science department in a private school.

Summer life, winter life. That’s all changed.

After my father died, I inherited the store and soon made Shay my “summer partner,” splitting the profits with her from June until the end of August because she worked so hard, side by side, with me. I work here every day now. I think, once in a while, about how Dan and I used to live in Boston and how I used to love the change of seasons and our location.

Now my life is the same, summer, winter, summer again; it never changes.

I stared out at the dog for a few minutes, then started mine and Shay’s daily choreography. We both know exactly what we had to do while staying out of each other’s way, working as smoothly as dance partners in an old routine. First thing, we put on our aprons, snow-white, with The Galley embroidered over the left side in little blue letters. Then she filled a big mayonnaise jar with water for her flowers, placing it on the counter next to the register. Daffodils, pink and yellow, and tiny purple grape hyacinth, quiet flowers, almost no scent, but they were rich in color.

Next, I turned on the big flattop behind the front counter, to heat it up for breakfast orders. Shay opened the side door and brought in the day’s delivery of Portuguese muffins and fresh doughnuts and crumb cakes on huge foil-wrapped trays. I took the bowl of eggs from the cooler and set them by the flattop, then piled the par-cooked bacon on a platter next to them. The bacon would be “finished”—fried as needed—for orders. I filled the coffee grind, set it to “fine,” filled the pot with water, stacked cups and napkins, my hands and body performing it all automatically. The last thing I do is write the Marine Conditions, which I get from NOAH, with a felt-tip marker on a whiteboard up front. My great-grandfather always did it, then my grandfather, then my father, and I still do, and even though I know it’s an anachronism, it comforts me.

I find great consolation in my work. It promises me that though I have suffered my loss, had my life ripped apart when I lost Dan, I still have a place to be, an anchor, working as I have always worked. The sun rises, the sun sets, month after month the moon returns full and round and glowing, and I can ignore it, until its life passes and it shrinks down to nothing and disappears and can do no more harm. And still I work here. I survive. I will come back tomorrow and open the Galley, and the next day and the next. There will be no more changes for me.

It’s all okay. I like the work and the rhythm of the work, the repetition, the comforting, blessed, deadening sameness.

The rich smell of fresh-ground coffee fills the air. I have coffee every day. Almost exactly at the same time every day. I need it to wake me up. I don’t sleep well and my mornings start off a bit fuddled.

I grab one white porcelain cup for Shay and the old blue enamel mug for me. I pour a hefty dollop of light cream in mine. “Shay?” I called out. “You want coffee?”

“Just have to get the newspapers!” she called back from behind the rows of shelves. Like the breads, the papers, too, had been delivered to the side door to be sold throughout the day. She carried them to the front and stacked them on a low shelf by the register. I sorted the morning mail, which had been left in a locked pouch clipped to the front door, quickly sliding envelopes and magazines into the mailboxes that lined the back wall. We finally finished.

“You need me to do anything else?” Shay asked.

“Everything’s done,” I replied. “Help yourself to breakfast.”

She scrambled some eggs for herself; I toasted two muffins, poured coffee, and sat down on the stool next to hers to eat. We always have our breakfast together.

“I swear, you are drinking a cup of cream,” she said, laughing. I looked into my cup. “I love it this way.” It felt like my grandmother was still taking care of me, which she did, more or less, in her own idiosyncratic way.

“So, how are things going for you?” Shay asks me that every morning.

“Sailing against the wind.” My usual response. “You?”

“Perfect.” Her answer, as always, was accompanied by a contented grin.

“Have you given any more thought about adding a café onto the store?” It’s the first time she has asked me that in a long time and it hurt. Dan was an architect and was going to design a little café for my father, since there was really no place in town to sit down with a cup of coffee and a snack and read a newspaper. I admired my father, but he didn’t do everything that I approved of. For instance, he was thrifty, which is a polite way of saying cheap. I still have a ton of white tees, all of them misshapen because my father got a discount on them—he thought that as long as they had a neckhole and two armholes somewhere on them, they were good enough to wear. Even when they have Fleetboom written across the front.

“Even if I built a café, who would help me run it?” I returned her question with another. “You’re gone in the winter and help is hard to find around here.”

“There’s plenty of people—okay, kids—that you can hire,” she said. “You do the cooking and they can run the deli and wait tables. You’re a great cook.”

“I’m not ready,” I murmured. “And kids aren’t the most reliable.”

She started to offer her usual rebuttal, but the bell hanging by the front door tinkled, signaling that our day had officially begun. Our first customer was always Mrs. Skipper. She was the mayor’s wife, and since it was town custom to address him as The Skipper, it seemed logical to call his wife Mrs. Skipper. Actually, I don’t even remember if The Skipper was actually an elected official; he had always been in charge, since I was a child. He and Mrs. Skipper were quite elderly now, maybe in their nineties, but he always carried himself erect and with a certain authority. Mrs. Skipper was tiny and thin, with wispy silver hair in a librarian bun, while her customary dark blue wool sweater covered her bony shoulders, no matter the temperature. She had always been brusque with me, and I had always chalked it up to some personality glitch. She gave Shay her daily order—two cherry Danishes, one for herself and one for The Skipper. “Make sure they’re fresh,” she always warned, as though the soft, glistening crust and moist cherries swirled with streusel crumbs weren’t proof enough. Mrs. Skipper watched intently as Shay grabbed a small square of wax paper, picked out two Danishes, and put them in a bag.

“Thank you,” Mrs. Skipper said, taking out her tiny gold beaded change purse and paying. She left, clutching the bag and her purse tightly to her chest in her two thin blue-veined hands.

Most of the population of Fleetbourne, like groupies, followed her, one after another, exchanging greetings and gossip and corny jokes. They mixed with the tourists, who spend their summers in the little rental cottages that line the main road and are within walking distance.

As usual, tourists and “Fleeties” alike emptied us of bread and milk, jars of the Cape’s famous homemade beach-plum jam, plus enough bacon and egg sandwiches to feed breakfast to Disney World.

The tourists are really no problem. They shop quickly and leave, sometimes checking the whiteboard where I post the Marine Conditions or repeatedly asking for directions to the many local tourist spots; but the good people of Fleetbourne linger. They seem to share a relentless need to delve into one another’s lives, blithely poking around personal business like beachcombers looking for lost engagement rings. I had already endured ten “Are you dating yet, honey?,” six “You must be lonely rattling around that big old house all by yourself,” and four promises to introduce me to perfectly lovely men who’d just been divorced, released from jail, or finally having great success with their new meds. I generally shrug them off.

But the last question left me rattled.

Martha Winston, who owns the florist shop, leaned across the counter, clutching her coffee and a half-pound plastic container of fruit salad, and asked me in a confidential tone, “I often wondered, honey, did they ever find the boat?”

“Shay!” I called out.

“Coming.”

Dear Shay. She immediately took my place at the counter while I sneaked off into the little kitchen in the back of the store to regain my composure. The boat. I had almost stopped thinking about the boat. Almost stopped looking for it. Waiting for it. Listening for its soft growling motor as it pulled up to the dock.

No, they never found the boat.

Baking calms me down and whipping up a few cranberry-pecan loaves was what I suddenly needed to be doing right now. After I mixed the dough, I sat on a stool and watched them bake through the glass oven door as their moist paleness slowly gave way to a rich brown. It’s called the Maillard reaction, this process that caramelizes their crusts and transforms them into proper breads. I was so proud of them.

The little kitchen felt comforting and protective. The ceiling fan creaked overhead, driving the scent of fresh loaves throughout the store. The shelves surrounding me were laden with glass canisters, neatly labeled, holding a variety of flours, brown sugar and white, almonds and pecans and walnuts, chocolate chips, bottles of boiled cider, molasses, and honey, all kinds of flavorings. There were shining copper-bottomed pots and pans hanging from the wrought-iron ceiling rack and cookie sheets and rolls of parchment paper and aluminum foil stored in a corner. My father had collected ingredients and kitchen tools. If I had nothing else, I had the neatly labeled canisters and glass jars that he kept in stock, the big silver mixer, the measuring cups and scoops and dented tins, every one of them a piece of my heritage, and every one of them reminding me of him.

When the loaves cooled, I wrapped them in aluminum foil ready to be sold.

Usually my cakes and cookies and pies became spontaneous gifts to friends and good customers, but these loaves will all be sold, because my heart has frozen over. I bake now only to make extra money for the store.

I peeked outside to see if the pit bull was still there. To his credit, he was staying out of the way, tucked under a nearby tree and curled into a ball, his eyes tightly shut. His stomach was full, he had found a place to sleep, and, too much like me, he was content with that, as little as it was.

The dog was waiting for me again the next morning, sitting by the front door of the Galley, his square lug-nut head tilted; he was watching me intently as I approached. He looked hopeful when I greeted him, his stumpy tail wagging very hesitantly, before he turned his face away as though he didn’t want to intrude. One eye was swollen shut and crusted over, and he had only one ear, the right, which had been cut down into a small triangle, the way they do with pit bulls that are used for fighting. It looked like the missing left ear had been ripped off; the edges had healed close to his skull in a lumpy line. There was a map of white lines tracing across his muzzle and right shoulder and down his front legs. His skin looked raw; thistles of reddish fur poked through crusty scabs that covered him like a threadbare blanket. He backed up a short distance and whined softly, then looked away again.

“I know,” I said to him. “I’ll feed you.”

Mine was a simple reaction. He needed to eat and I wanted to feed him. I let myself into the Galley, grabbed the dog food, took two clean bowls from the dishwasher and filled them, food and water, and left them several feet away from the door. He waited until I went back inside before he started eating.

Turning on the flattop was next. It was exactly six a.m. I had been up since five. I had showered and dressed, jeans and a tee, then walked the five blocks from my home to the Galley. I try to walk to work every day, straight down Mainsail Road, which cuts the town in half, five blocks, a right onto Beach Six. The Galley is on the right side.

Alone. I always walk alone.

Our village is safe and quiet, twenty-two blocks long and ten blocks wide. My house is on Beach One Street, sitting right on the sand. The village ends at Beach Twenty-two. I like walking past the small Cape Cods painted in pale Easter colors, blue or green or pink or yellow, all with white shutters and doors. I know whose children are getting up for school, who has left for work, who likes Danish with their morning coffee, who likes buttered rolls. I like that the cross streets are named for sea things, Neptune Road, Anchor Road, Mooring Way, all of it fenced in by low white wooden posts and rails and looping white-painted anchor chains and white buoys hanging here and there. It’s the perfect seafaring landscape come to life. You would think the Little Mermaid lived here. The Galley is seven hundred steps from the corner and is painted a soft gray with marine blue trim. Everyone knows the Galley.

I arrive the same time every morning. Five forty-five. I live by routine; its rigidity and repetition keep me together.

“I knew he’d be back,” Shay announced from the front door at six a.m. She had more yellow daffodils. Her hair was wrapped in a yellow scarf; she was wearing long, yellow bead earrings and looked like a flower herself. I had to admire her style. She always looked so pulled together.

I shrugged. “I don’t think it’s personal,” I said. “He came for the food.”

“Probably.” She nodded in agreement. “But you should adopt him. It looks like he could use a friend and you need something in your life again.”

I had to turn away, so powerful was my reaction. My stomach cramped, sending a wave of nausea through me. I had a sudden vision of Dan, in our living room. It was a winter evening and we were lying together on the rug in front of the fireplace. His face was glowing from the fire he had just built in the hearth. Life was wonderful. I was chairing the science department in a private school that I loved. And we were both euphoric because Dan had just made partner in the small architect firm in Boston where he had worked since graduating from college. He was going to design us a totally green house, he said with a wide grin, with four bedrooms, because we were going to need the extra space. We had just agreed to try for a baby.

Shay put her hand on my arm. “You don’t want to live alone forever, Aila.”

I held up my hand to silence her. “It was never my intention to live alone.”

“I know.” The conversation was finished. She left for the side door to bring in the bakery items. I took out the eggs and the bacon and ground the coffee and put fresh water into the pot. I saw with satisfaction that three of my six loaves had been sold the day before. When they were all gone, I would make more. Mix the dough, watch it brown, sell the loaves, make more.

Routine.

Routine is my savior.

The rest of the morning passed quietly. I usually close the Galley at four, but Shay came over to me much earlier. “When is the last time you took a break?” she asked.

“Never,” I said, laughing, then stopped abruptly, realizing I didn’t want a break.

“There’s hardly anyone coming in,” she said. “Why don’t you knock off early? Do something else.”

“What would I do?” I was genuinely puzzled. I hadn’t taken a day off in two years. Not one day. I even opened the Galley on Christmas in case anyone needed something. My mother was in a nursing home; I visit her every Saturday after work and this was only Thursday. What else was there to do?

“Get a haircut,” said Shay, tugging gently at a strand of my hair. “Your hair could use an update.”

“Miss Phyllis says the David Cassidy look is coming back,” I protested. Miss Phyllis owns Phyllis’s Follicles, the local hair salon. It featured an ugly name, two chairs, and hairstyles from the seventies.

“Then buy shoes,” Shay continued “Or take yourself out for an early dinner at the Lobster Pot. I can close up and drop your keys off later.” She handed me my striped canvas purse and pushed me out the door with a firm good-bye. I walked home. The dog started to follow me.

I turned around to face him. “Go home,” I commanded.

He blinked at me and looked away; his stump tail drooped.

“I’m not kidding,” I said firmly. “Go away. I can’t take care of you. Go find your owner.”

I continued walking—I admired the sight of one pastel house after another, almost all of them flanked with magenta and cerise beach roses in full bloom—ending at my house, and yet fully aware that he was following me anyway.

Late June is the best time of the year. The weather runs from mellow warm to meltingly hot, the breezes blow fair, as my father used to say, the tourists are plentiful, and the public beaches are dotted with colorful umbrellas and laughing children. Our village beach is private, dotted mostly with shells and pebbles and an occasional human, and we like it that way. That day it was empty.

I stood on my deck and stared out over the bay. But this time, the dog was also standing on the deck, across from me. He had followed me up, one hesitant step at a time.

I sat down on the top step. H. . .